PC troubles again....

Hey all I am having a lil flash back to the other prob i had not too long ago... I am getting random shut downs... My PC will just all of a sudden shutdown and turn off. I just replaced the Power Supply with a 750wW unit. my Video card is only a lil over a year old, I do not believe I am having any troubles with my Ram, or any other things of the sort. If anyone has any ideas I am more the up to hearing them. Thanks again, S

Ok so I think I may have it down to my system running a lil too hot... Anyone got any ideas of how I could keep it a lil bit cooler. I have my tower sitting on top of my computer desk. Nothing is blocking the side or back panels, but I cannot afford to get another fan to put inside of it to keep the temp down.... Any help would be greatly appreciated once again. S

Shean if our sytem is running to hot that its shutting off then one of your main fans may not be performing up to snuff or not at all. Open your case and see if your processor fan is running. Becasue on top of my PS being kaput when mine was doing it I have also have my Process fan go. usually the vid card fan will just mess with your grapics whereas your processor will shut down.

 

Make sure its running and that no dust is gooped up and blocking it from turning. If it is running fine clean it best you and if it still runs hot leave your side pannel open and have a external fan blowing close to it to keep it cool. however again if it is running hot like taht it will probally require mainatance to fix. but that should hold you until you can get it looked at.

 

Goodluck <3

Apparently spelling every third word incorrectly will help too...

Start by keeping the side of the computer case off and see if that helps at all.

Next vacuum the fan blades to make sure they are clean.

Ensure that your case fans are working to drive air in a single direction through your case (typically front to back) and minimise any potential obstacles to that air flow such as cables.

Apparently spelling every third word incorrectly will help too...

 

 

Its part of my charm you should try it sometime

Well it got to a point to were my PC wouldn't even turn on. I took out my video card and got it to power on for a bit. Now it is back to it's same old tricks again... it will power up but before my desktop will load up it shuts right back down again. I will try and clean it out real good tomorrow and see if that doesn't help but I am not sure at this time if it will or not. I have also removed the side panel and am leaving it shut off for the night. Wish me luck. S

Heat sounds like could be what's going on, if you have a portable fan, when your side panel is off point it to the computer and let it run when the computer is on. If it's not coming on right now, though it sounds like it could be hardware more than thermal control. I had a similar problem several years ago, it ended up being a hairline crack in the system board.

What kind of video card are you using? I might have some tips that I use if you have an nvidia or ATI card. When are the restarts happening? Is it after windows boot, or prior to that. Also are you able to access your BIOS and check your voltage settings for your components? You mentioned you just bought a new power supply, may have accidently put a cable in the wrong link, or had something come loose.

Well I just got all of the boards and heat syncs blown out. Had a lot more dust built up in them then I had thought there was. Right now it is up and running but I am running it with my on board Video card instead of the one I bought for it. Chozo I run a Nvidia 9800 GT with a GB of on board memory. Yea if you got any tricks shoot em my way, if I can't get on through this PC luckily I still have a running laptop. Yea I can and could get into my BioS as well as run my pc in Safe mode. And yea Shad unfortunately I think it is more then just a temp things atm. I got my video card blown out real good too and it was a lil dirtier then I thought as well. Gonna install it back and see if it will power up still or if it will go back to crashing repeatedly as well. Any help would be appreciated. I am just hoping that the overheating that I know it was doing didn't have any adverse affects on my Mother Board, and only affected things that are a lot easier to replace. Although I did file my Income tax last night so I am hoping I can swindle a new PC out of the wife. But keep your fingers crossed everyone please. S

Well I just got all of the boards and heat syncs blown out. Had a lot more dust built up in them then I had thought there was. Right now it is up and running but I am running it with my on board Video card instead of the one I bought for it. Chozo I run a Nvidia 9800 GT with a GB of on board memory. Yea if you got any tricks shoot em my way, if I can't get on through this PC luckily I still have a running laptop. Yea I can and could get into my BioS as well as run my pc in Safe mode. And yea Shad unfortunately I think it is more then just a temp things atm. I got my video card blown out real good too and it was a lil dirtier then I thought as well. Gonna install it back and see if it will power up still or if it will go back to crashing repeatedly as well. Any help would be appreciated. I am just hoping that the overheating that I know it was doing didn't have any adverse affects on my Mother Board, and only affected things that are a lot easier to replace. Although I did file my Income tax last night so I am hoping I can swindle a new PC out of the wife. But keep your fingers crossed everyone please. S

 

Ok so first off, for the overheating of your GFX card, nvidia yay.

 

Go DL a program called rivatuner - http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner

 

I've only used this program for a few weeks, but oh my god has it made a difference. Basically it lets u low level overclock / force set your fan speed. Theres a lot of tutorials that you can find online for any card, and I use ATI so my instructions probably wont be the same, but there is a lot of documentation on overclocking each gfx card u might have. Basically I force set my card fan to 100% all the time. It causes more power to be used, but has brought my card from constantly overheating at ~80 degrees in raids to about 40-50. Big difference in my opinion.

 

The dust sounds like a big problem as well, should definitely help your cooling issue out.

 

Thirdly, are you familiar with your motherboards / cards / other components voltage requirements? The BIOS has an area of it that will tell you the voltages being sent to each component, and you can compare that with the recommended voltages for them and see if maybe something is not getting enough electricity, or if it is just a overheating issue, the stuff I mentioned above will help a lot.

 

Try these out see if anything helps. You can always try rolling back your drivers if all else fails (I don't know if you constantly backup your system or anything like that) or even doing a full windows re-format (Good time to buy windows 7) and just re-install wow (Yay for 6 hours of DL / update time).

 

Good luck man!

Well after getting all blown out I got it booted up without my card in there and it ran without any probs for about an hour. I then decided to put my gfx card back in there, I got it booted back up again but Windows would not let me card load up saying it was reporting errors. I set the drivers back by one setup and rebooted it and it then allowed my card to run. I left it up for about 5 hours with no problems. My temp went from running round 57-60*C to round the mid 40's to low 50's. So after it ran for all that time I logged into the forums to read what was going on before I tried to log in and get some of my fixation taking care of ( I am seriously Pheening here....) and low and behold in the middle of replying to the new app from Taisul it went ahead and shut off on me. I am not gonna attempt anything for the night. With my card only running round the mid 50's (never above 54* that I could see) I am not so sure it is my video card anymore. A buddy of mine told me that the system running hot could of caused problems with the Motherboard and I am really hoping that that isn't the issue anymore.

 

Chozo do you know if that Rivatuner only controls the GFX card's fans or would it allow me to adjust my CPU fan as well.

 

Well I hope to get this fixed without having to buy anything to do so. If that is the case and I am gonna have to purchase something I think I am just gonna bide my time and wait for my Income tax to come in and get myself a new one built. If I have to resort to that then I think that I might be out for a few weeks to a month or so. I will keep you all updated and let you know. I will still log in from time to time but the only thing I will have to play in us my laptop that freaks everytime I try to play WoW on it. Hoping to see yall soon. S

I'm thinking it was the heat issue, but at this point i would be wondering if the constant overheating/shutting down may have damaged any other components. I have a 9800 gt as well, and it tends to run hot under load.

 

I would definitely check your voltages tho. I put new high performance memory in at one point, and everything ran fine until i got the computer under heavy load. then boom, freeze up and shut down. I set the correct voltages in the BIOS and not only did it run stable, but it ran much better. Maybe check to upgrade your BIOS to the newest version.

 

If it was indeed your cpu that has been overheating, you may want to reseat it, clean the cpu and heatsink, and apply some high grade thermal paste.

 

You have already re-seated your video card, maybe try re-seating the memory and check all your cables and molex connectors that they are nice and snug (careful not to force or bend anything).

 

Do a little hardware check up. Clean all the fans/fan blades/heat sinks/ventilation areas. Make sure all the hardware/connectors are seated firmly. Rearrange the cables/wires to not obstruct airflow.

 

Also, I build computers on the side and have lots of stuff sitting around, I could send ya an extra 80 mm fan or two if you have room in your case. It's been a while since i built anyone a fancy gaming rig and these fans are sitting around doing me no good, and they are pretty cool LED fans.

 

that's all i got for ya! =D good luck

 

Edit: oh also being that it seemed your stability issues changed with removal and replacement of your video card, upgrade to the newest drivers, and make sure it's fan is clean.

Edited March 1, 2010 by Killerpriest

Sorry Shean, rivatuner is purely an ATI and NVIDIA gfx card software, it can't access your cpu fans. One thing I've seen a lot of people use for CPU fan stuff is actually just called speedfan. I however, have absolutely no use with this other than just installing it and running it to check my fan speed / some core temperatures.

 

One thing you could try (and this would distinguish if its your gfx card or not) is to find a friend with an open pci slot and put your card in it and see what happens when he tries to run graphics off of it. If he uses it as his output card and nothing goes wrong for a while, then yeah, might not be your card. Other than that I really don't have any more suggestions other than start picking stuff and start hitting it with a hammer till it works. I mean you're gonna buy a new one afterall

Ohh and to top it all off I can't even play my PS3 right now. I got hit with the error code that I can't sign into the PSNetwork. Error code 8001050f. And it looks as if Sony is doing nothing but trying to wait it out and see if ti fixes itself. S

Yeah if you have a version of the PS3 older than the new slim one you shouldn't turn it on until Toyota fixes the brakes, leaky gas lines, and faulty wiring.